


Lapse

by wynnebat



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Crack, Gen, Hogwarts Fourth Year, Kidnapping, M/M, Pre-Slash, Time Travel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-28
Updated: 2018-08-28
Packaged: 2019-07-03 22:57:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,530
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15828642
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wynnebat/pseuds/wynnebat
Summary: A 120 year old Harry suddenly finds himself watching as the Goblet of Fire spits out his name. Merlin, he’s way too old for this crap.





	Lapse

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into 中文 available: [Lapse(Chinese translation)](https://archiveofourown.org/works/15995816) by [RicardoHarasaa](https://archiveofourown.org/users/RicardoHarasaa/pseuds/RicardoHarasaa)



> Prompted by anonymous.

For the first few moments, Harry is too out of it to even understand what is happening. There are red sparks in the air, shouting, yelling, applause, confusion, Hermione’s hand shaking his shoulder as Dumbledore speaks, “Mr. Potter, with us, please.”

Harry stands up mechanically, nearly tripping over his robes as he leaves the Gryffindor table. He passes the unnecessarily large cup in the middle of the great hall and doesn’t spare a glance at the rest of the Hogwarts populace. There’s a blinding headache building in his head and all he really wants to do is sleep it off. Deciding whether he’s dead or simply lost his mind can be a challenge best left for later.

The room that Dumbledore guides him into is full of mystified people who all seem to want to know how he forced his way past the age line.

“I didn’t even put my name in,” Harry tells the lot of them. He rubs at his temples. Maybe this really is magical dementia, because he could’ve sworn this scene played out differently. It had been over a century ago and he’d been less of a crotchety old man, but there were some major differences. “Where’s Cedric?”

“Mr. Diggory? Was he who placed your name in the cup?” Dumbledore asks.

“No, of course not,” Harry replies. He barely even remembers Cedric, but he’d been a good lad. He hadn’t been the type to break a rule without a very good reason. It had been some Death Eater, hadn’t it? Under the guise of Moody.

But while Harry tries to reconcile himself with the fact that there is an elaborate play being told in his head, the others move on. Moody guides the conversation to keep Harry from being punished, which Harry appreciates despite him secretly being evil. He’s too old to get detention. Good lord, he’s a few months past his hundred-twentieth birthday.

Spontaneous time travel is not something that occurs outside of wizarding novels sold for a few knuts in the bookstore’s bargain rack, but if Harry accepts that this is reality, it seems that that’s what happened. He’s fourteen again. Frankly, had Harry been able to choose an age to return to instead of having one chosen for him, he would’ve gone with his mid-thirties. No zits, no puberty, top-notch auror’s body. Although, this one isn’t all that bad, either. None of the aches and pains that plagued him later in life. He can even fly if he wants to.

As he listens to the conversation with one ear, Harry idly decides that if he truly did time travel to just before the ceremony, then of course the goblet chose him over Cedric Diggory. A seventeen year old boy is hardly in the same league as a hundred-twenty year old suddenly in his prime. Harry’s defeated three dark lords, taken down multiple worldwide criminal operations, and served a seven year stint as minister for magic when Hermione got bored with the job. By any measure, he’s the best champion the goblet could choose.

If this isn’t some elaborate daydream... Well, he needs a plan of attack. Harry is many things, but he isn’t a scholar. Although even Hermione would likely turn down this opportunity to be forced to redo three years at Hogwarts. Harry didn’t enjoy classes the first time around. A second time would drive him mad. By the nature of the tournament, Harry won’t be able to find his way out of the trials, but he’s not going to spend his days making potions he could buy more easily or turning teacups into toilets. Harry may have named a kid after him, but that doesn’t mean he ever wants to be stuck in Severus Snape’s classroom again. He’s too old for this shit.

Dear Merlin, he’s probably older than Dumbledore.

Harry sticks around as the professors and judges recount the rules of the tournament, but as soon as they’re done, he meets Professor Dumbledore’s eyes.

Quietly, as he doesn’t want to make a scene, Harry says, “May we speak privately, Headmaster?”

Harry won’t shoot himself in the foot by springing something like this on Dumbledore in public.

“An excellent idea,” Dumbledore replies. There are a few voices behind them who seem to be of a different opinion, but Harry simply follows Dumbledore through the corridors and up into Dumbledore’s office. Once seated behind his grand desk, Dumbledore pours them each a cup of tea with a wave of his wand. “What do you wish to tell me, my boy?”

Harry pauses for a moment as he considers just telling Dumbledore the truth. But that would take time, and proof, and Harry simply doesn’t intend to stay here long enough to convince the headmaster that he hasn’t gone mad. This will hurt him, and Harry may not feel the same way about Dumbledore as his younger self had, but he doesn’t want to cause him pain.

Like a bandaid. One, two, three. “I’m dropping out of Hogwarts.”

Dumbledore is exactly as thrilled as Harry would’ve imagined. Harry goes through two cups of tea and five lemon drops as he listens to why education is important, how he cannot bow to fear, that Voldemort is only waiting for a chance like this, that his life is on the line. Harry, whose life has been on the line for most of his life and wouldn’t know what to do with himself if it wasn’t, isn’t very receptive to that line of argument.

“You won’t be able to keep your wand, Mr. Potter,” Dumbledore eventually says.

“The goblet accepted me as an adult,” Harry replies. “Shouldn’t everyone else, too?”

But he’s not about to sit around arguing the finer points of magical law and ministry regulations.

Harry stares into those tired blue eyes and calls his headmaster’s bluff. He removes his beautiful holly wand from his robes. It hurts to do so, but he’s hardly lived to his old age with only one wand. The wand chooses the wizard, and he’s attached to this lovely thing, but it’s not the only wand in the world that will suit him. He bets that the wandmakers in France might already have his dragon heartstring wand lying around. And so, Harry places the wand against the edge of Dumbledore’s desk, hands on both ends, and moves to break it in two.

“Stop, please, my boy.” Dumbledore looks so shaken. It must finally be sinking in that Harry is deadly serious. “You’ll need your wand more than ever if you leave the safety of Hogwarts’ halls. Would you accept a leave of absence instead?”

“You could call it that, if you’d like,” Harry offers. “Professor, I don’t intend to return to Hogwarts for anything except the tasks, which I’m sure the goblet will magically compel me to do so.” Deciding he’s had enough, Harry stands up. He doesn’t return to the Gryffindor tower for his trunk, instead asking a house elf to retrieve it for him before throwing floo powder into the fireplace in Dumbledore’s office. “Until the first task, Headmaster. Number Four, Privet Drive!”

The Dursleys are unsurprisingly affronted to see him there, but Harry only stays long enough to stomp the soot from his boots onto the living room carpet. With a wave, he apparates away from their vile little house.

He wouldn’t stay there for all the money in the world.

 

*

 

A day later, Harry Potter can be found reclining on a pool chair on the deck of a cruise ship, a drink in his hand with more alcohol than a boy so young really should be served. The sun is hot and shining in the sky, but Harry’s wearing some prescription sunglasses in addition to some swim shorts. All around him, muggles who don’t know his name relax and enjoy their vacations. If he concentrates, Harry can hear the band playing on a level below deck.

The music is largely drowned out by the yells of his companion. “I will drown the light from your miserable existence in this ocean if you don’t release me this instant!”

A passing muggle woman glances at them. “Aw, your little brother’s a cutie.”

“Thank you,” Harry says, smug in his ability to cast a glamour charm over Voldemort’s creepy little golem form. The greatest dark lord of the age currently looked like a younger version of the boy Harry saw in Dumbledore’s pensieve, adorably pouty and just begging to be cooed at by passing muggles. It helps that Harry also charmed them both with an anti-eavesdropping charm that presented their words as perfectly innocuous.

“Relax,” Harry tells him. “Don’t waste the cocktail.”

Someone really needs to teach Voldemort that there’s more to life than anger.

Voldemort continues throwing a fit from the folding chair next to his, but Harry just hums and enjoys the sun. He’s going on a hundred and twenty one years old. There’s no point in denying himself things in his old age. If this continues to be something more than a hallucination, Harry will give in and either kill Voldemort or reform him. But until then, this fourteen year old body is awfully pale.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! If you choose to leave a comment, please respect the fact that this fic is marked complete. 
> 
> I'm also on [tumblr](https://crownwithoutstones.tumblr.com/).


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